1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of messaging systems and, more specifically, accessing information using messaging systems such as instant messaging systems.
2. Description of Related Art
The growth of the web has revolutionized the way people and computers exchange information. Today, individuals use the web to quickly research and purchase products, engage in personal conversations, find places to eat, plan travel and conduct business. Businesses use the web to advertise and sell their products or services, communicate with their customers, facilitate inter-office communications and even provide services. The primary way in which the web is used to conduct these activities is through the use of a web browser employing the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Web browsers provide a relatively quick and easy-to-use tool to exchange information. Typically, a person utilizes a web browser adhering to the HTTP to view information transmitted from a web server. In today's fast-paced world, however, sometimes even the speed of a web browser is not fast enough.
Web browsers are many times slow and time-consuming to use. When the connection bandwidth of a web browser is low or there are great amounts of web traffic, there is often a long wait for information to be displayed in the web browser. This is a common problem for low bandwidth users such as PC users with a dial-up connection or handheld/cell phone users with a wireless connection. In addition, web browsers sometimes do not correctly process certain types of web content, such as Java script. This can lead to the web browser shutting down or the computer system crashing. Further, web browsers often require a certain amount of user interaction in order to access information. Users must often navigate through a series of web pages in order to get the information they are seeking. This can be time-consuming and annoying.
For this reason, instant messaging (IM) has gained popularity. IM allows users to instantaneously exchange messages including text, audio, video and various types of files. IM is immediate as it does not require users to navigate through irrelevant information. IM, however, is generally only available for communication between users and does not currently support accessing information in a database or on the web.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system for quickly and efficiently exchanging information on the web.